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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24560938">Over The Hill Yet Back Again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka'>Rellanka</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Year Of Cloudy Skies [33]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Also implied past Cloud/others, As is typical of me, Crack, Fluff and Humor, Grumpy Old Men, Inappropriate Flirting, M/M, Old Man Cloud, Strifentine is implied rather than overt, That others don't know is inappropriate, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:41:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,544</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24560938</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud has been doing this a long, long time. Why can't he ever just sit in a rocking chair and laugh at the folly's of youth like the other old men do? </p><p>Why does the Planet hate him? </p><p>Cloud would like to know.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cloud Strife/Vincent Valentine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Year Of Cloudy Skies [33]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697269</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>267</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Over The Hill Yet Back Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've likely said this before, but: sometimes, I like to pretend I'm funny.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At some point, during the long, endless cycles of the Planet sending him back to save the world once more and Cloud living the same life, over and over again, Cloud had started looking at the people around him, and, well…</p><p>Thinking that they were very young.  </p><p>And he had reason to, really. At this point, Cloud was, what? In his late hundreds, technically? Maybe even his thousands? Somewhere in there at least, if you were to add up all of the collected experience he had over his timelines. And how long he had lived during some of them. </p><p>And it’s hardly as if Cloud internally remained as unchanging as his physical appearance. He learned, he grew, he altered his thought patterns and ideals. </p><p>He changed. </p><p>But when people looked at him, especially when he <i>did</i> get thrown back to the past, they saw a young, attractive person. </p><p>They never realized that what they were <i>really</i> looking at was a tired old man. </p><p>Who occasionally looked at the people around him and saw <i>babies</i> in the naïve, idealistic young people that were fighting a war they didn’t truly realize the full extent or cost of. </p><p>It was making it harder and harder to go through the motions of the already known past, making only slight changes and guiding his friends in what they needed to do, while really just wanting to bundle them up and sit them down somewhere safe with a cup of cocoa to talk through their issues with them until they were able to be the well-adjusted people Cloud knew they could be. The people that he many times <i>helped</i> them become. </p><p>It seemed more than a little unfair that such endeavors always had to happen at a certain point, a certain time, usually after a battle against Shinra and/or Sephiroth was won. The Planet had some points locked in time, and most of those points were inconvenient to Cloud, particularly. </p><p>It was enough to cause a man to seriously consider starting the Apocalypse himself, just for a bit of change. (It was a little disconcerting, now, how often Cloud caught himself sympathizing with Sephiroth’s desires in his old age.) </p><p>Back to the problem at hand, while Cloud could usually suppress his urge to care for his young friends, sometimes some of his inner thoughts burst out of him, and he couldn’t stop himself from saying things like, </p><p>“You really do have a great heart, kid.” Cloud knew instantly he shouldn’t have told Barret that, not this Barret, at least. He <b>knew</b> Barret, knew him much better than the man realized. Before Cloud had started viewing everyone around him as children, Cloud had had relationships with many of his friends during the repetitive cycles of death and rebirth in the past. With the exception of his husband, he could never view the new versions of the people he once loved romantically in the same light. Maybe it was because of those deeper connections he’d forged with them, maybe it was that he’d seen and known them intimately when they were much older, but he often looked at the next version of them as someone to protect, someone to guide. Someone to be proud of, as he was of Barret, and his huge, caring heart. It caused him to act in way that could easily be taken in the wrong way, and he wasn’t surprised when Barret did react. </p><p>“Are you condescending me, you damned asshole? Let me at him! Damnit, Tif’, let me at him!!” Barret roared as he struggled against Tifa’s braced form, straining to hold Barret back even as he pushed all his weight forward to reach Cloud. To choke Cloud out, if the way he was kneading his empty hands in the air was any indication. </p><p>Cloud sighed as he watched the chaos happening before him resignedly, knowing that Barret was going to break free of Tifa, eventually. Also knowing that he’d likely get blamed for the damage done to Tifa’s bar while he was defending himself racing around the bar and dodging Barret’s many attempts to catch him. His luck, reliable for nothing else, was reliable for things like that. </p><p>Cloud might currently have the stamina for all of it, but to his thousands-year-old mind the whole production sounded exhausting. </p><p>He really was too old for all of this. </p><p>***</p><p>It wasn’t only things like that situation, of course, because if there was anything worse than not being able to help his friend’s mental states, it was not being able to help with their mental states <b>and</b> being forced to watch as they were overly rough with their physical states. </p><p>“I really think that we should start getting more armor for everyone.” Cloud said with crossed arms, interrupting Barret during one of his typical speeches. He easily ignored the strange looks the entire team was sending him to continue, “Especially for you Barret, you barely even wear any armor at all. You’re practically <b>naked</b> out there. Tifa, Wedge, Biggs, you too. Jessie, good job with the chest armor, even if it is an… <i>interesting</i> shape, but you really need to think of some more for you middle and head. And speaking of middles, you all need to start eating more. Don’t think I haven’t noticed some of you skipping meals. Being busy fighting an evil conglomerate is no excuse not to stay nourished…”</p><p>He rambled on, Avalanche all staring at him as if he had just sprouted three heads and started dancing naked on the table. The looks would have been a little embarrassing to someone younger, perhaps, but if even a fraction of what he was saying managed to make it through their thick heads, then his entire speech would have been worth it. Young people really didn’t understand how fragile they were, and Cloud had a vested interest in keeping them all safe and in one piece. </p><p>***</p><p>And then Cloud had to deal with situations like this, which Cloud privately thought might be some kind of torture existent just to drive him insane.</p><p>Cloud watched the blushing, rambling man in front of him with the sort of nervousness an ordinary person might watch an approaching Tonberry with their ever present promise of <b>imminent death.</b></p><p>Gee, did Cloud wish there was one around right now. One whose path he could just… step into.</p><p>“…so, uh, I mean, of course you don’t have to join me, but if you’d like to, if you want, you’re welcome to come with me to the Chocobo race tomorrow!” Biggs finished, the red in his face and the rest of his ramble having made it clear that he hadn’t meant as a friend. </p><p><i>You’re literally a <b>fetus</b></i>. Cloud thought with the complete horror of someone who was being genuinely propositioned by a one-year-old. No matter how many times he encountered it, this was always the worst situation he could possibly be in with no way out of it without hurting the feelings of someone he cared for and considered a close friend. </p><p>Not for the first time, Cloud inwardly and vehemently cursed Gaia. If the thrice-damned Planet <i>hadn’t</i> made it a requirement that Vincent not be woken up until the same point that he had during Cloud’s first journey, then situations like this could be avoided. </p><p>But no, the Planet just had to also add limitations to Cloud’s lover when the man managed, with the help of his demons, to convince the Planet to start sending them back with Cloud in this repetitive cycle. They’d all wanted to make it so that Cloud didn’t have to be so alone during the cycles, with only fleeting glimpses of happiness with loves that he always, always lost. If nothing else had convinced Cloud of the depths of their love for him, it had been that. He’d always be thankful for the loyalty of his husband and his demons, the mind-blowing devotion they showed him. But it made their absence at times like this all the harder to bare. </p><p>Vincent, particularly, could have really helped at a time like this. But mentioning his relationship with Vincent always sounded like a lie when he talked about him, especially when the only truth that he could give others when they asked where his husband was was that, ‘You see, my husband isn’t around because he’s in something like a coma because the Planet won’t let me wake him up yet because there’s a set time where I’m allowed to do that because Gaia enjoys <b>running my life.</b>’ </p><p>Cloud had tried that once, with Roche, only for the man to somehow manage to track Vincent down to wake him up himself and challenge him to a duel for Cloud’s heart in a very embarrassing production that Vincent <i>still</i> hasn’t let Cloud live down. </p><p>To this day, Cloud still didn’t even know how the man had found out who Cloud was talking about.  </p><p>…Even though over a thousand years had passed since that particular nightmare.</p><p>So that left him with only one other option, one that always garnered him very odd looks but also never failed to somehow <b>work</b>.</p><p>“I’m flattered, Biggs, I really am. But you see… I’m in a <b>deeply</b> committed romantic relationship with my sword…”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Less funny and more shippy short timestamp/drabble thing coming tomorrow.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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